First Date
by Nightwingess
Summary: After months of knowing one another, Jack finally asks Rapunzel out for their first date!


Prompt: Is it too late to requet a drabblee? If not, can i request a modern au where they go on a date and at the end they walk around barefoot. Thank you! :D

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Rapunzel wasn't sure what to expect on her first date with Jack Frost. Hiccup had told her Jack was sly, a prankster but he had a good heart. Merida had told her pretty much the same thing, although her word choice was much more colorful and she left out the "good heart" part until Hiccup elbowed her in the stomach.

Rapunzel already knew a lot about Jack, he was the boy who'd watch her paint in the park, and every now and then he'd ask her what she was drawing, usually when his sister was more invested in a conversation with one of her friends than him. The more he came to talk to her, the more she liked him being there. She even started baking him cookies in the hopes that he could sit them with her, he always did.

Later on, he became the boy that took her to secret places in the forest with abandoned tree houses and quiet little lakes. They had picnics, they swam together, she sang him songs and he tried to follow her melody only to make her laugh so hard with his out of tune voice that she'd fall over onto the grass, the grass that she loved. After months of this, Jack decided it was time to ask her out.

He really had no idea where to take her, he hated the idea of getting "dressed" in the sense of wearing formal clothes and he certainly didn't want to take her to a stuffy restaurant. When he told Merida this, she gave him the biggest eye roll he'd ever seen, he thought her eyes would fall right out of her skull.

"Good luck with that." She told him, Hiccup suppressed a laugh.

"Well, you know her better than I do Hiccup, do you think she'd really like going to some restaurant with roses and silverware, the whole shebang?"

"I think Rapunzel won't care so long as it's an adventure." Hiccup said honestly.

"An adventure?" Jack raised an eyebrow, his head was filling with ideas.

"Yeah, she's always talking about going places, her mom's so strict that it's all she ever dreams about. Take her to have some fun."

"Aye, that's your forte Jack." Merida said with a smile and Jack nodded.

"Indeed it is."

He'd told Rapunzel to wear whatever she was comfortable in, to his surprise she showed up in a dark pink sundress and no shoes at all. He cursed himself for having bothered with shoes, he never cared for them to begin with but he figured it would be weird to go without them on a date.

_She's already braver than me._

"Hi Jack!" She waved. They stood in silently for a few minutes with Rapunzel smiling and Jack nodding absentmindedly. It wasn't until Rapunzel tugged on his sleeve that he remembered they were supposed to be on a date.

"Hey Punz, you don't mind if we do some…strange things do you?"

She opened her mouth to ask a question but stopped to think over what he had said, her face started to blush and he laughed.

"Uh, not those things, I mean not the typical date things. I've got too much energy to sit for more than 20 minutes at a time. I was thinking we'd go somewhere far, abandoned, maybe haunted?"

Rapunzel's eyes widened with excitement, every word intrigued her.

"Yes! That sounds awesome!" Jack held out his arm and she tucked her arm into his.

_Here's hoping I don't screw this up._

He drove her to a quieter side of town where all the older buildings were. As soon as they got out of the car she was asking questions about them. Which one was the biggest, which one had burned down, which one was haunted? He tried to answer her questions as quickly as she asked them but he had a hard time keeping up with the fact pace that she was speaking, she was a bit enthusiastic about it actually, not that he minded, he thought it was cute.

"Ah, sorry, am I talking to fast?"

"Yeah, but it's okay, I know what you're saying."

"You do?" She sounded so surprised, he nodded and her panic turned into admiration, he wasn't sure why, he hadn't done anything to warrant such a reaction but he didn't question it.

He pointed to the "haunted" building and grabbed the basket from his trunk. She was already at the door before he even turned around.

"Why is it haunted?"

"People who live around here say they hear voices singing songs of kings and queens but when they look inside, there's no one there." He pushed the door open and gestured for her to follow. She jumped into the room and started to touch the walls. There were so many lines and cracks, so many tears and stains. Her eyes looked so serious as she studied them as if she was memorizing every detail.

"Thinking about painting?" He asked. The look she had was the same one she wore just before she started a new piece. It was very different from the expression she had on when she did paint, which was filled with joy, imagination and wonder.

She had placed her thumb over some graffiti markings and traced the lining of the letters, "I was just thinking, this place has so much history, the stones look so old and the markings, the spray paint I mean, are made by lives whose great grandparents weren't even alive when the men put together each stone to make this," she lifted her hands, "building!"

He placed the basket down and smiled at her, "I never thought of it that way."

She turned to look at him, "That's one thing I want to do, or _maybe_ want to do, I'm always changing my mind. " She ran up to him and her smile grew.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, sometimes I want to remake buildings, preserve them, clean them, but you know change is important too so I kind of want to recreate! But I also want to make original things too! But I don't want to lose what was. Past, present, future, all important things." She nodded in all seriousness of what she was saying.

"Very important, super important." He said trying to veil his confusion. He appreciated how excited she was, he wanted to be excited with her, but he couldn't fully understand it. She could see his confusion and the hidden sincerity in his eyes, she smiled again and took his hand. He felt a rush of blood rise to his cheeks as she pulled him over to the wall. She pressed his fingers against it, "You feel all the history, it outlived the people that made it." She leaned in closer, unaware of how she was making him feel, "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

He swallowed hard and nodded. She pressed her hand to his cheek and giggled lightly, he chuckled in return.

"It is beautiful, there's a lot of history I never bothered to notice before..." He felt like his whole world shifting, she could see the change in her face and for a brief moment she felt as though she was falling in love. With others it would take weeks of explaining but with Jack, he tried so hard to understand that he slowly started to, and because of that she felt weak in the knees.

"So , what's in the basket?" She sat down next to it and crossed her legs. Jack grinned and walked over to her, he put his head on her shoulder and watched with satisfaction as her face turned red.

"Open it." She let out a breathy laugh and pulled the top of the basket back, her eyes almost sparkled with what she saw inside.

"Paint!"

"I figured the ghosts would like it if you made their home beautiful for them." Jack said, he reached over her and pulled out the purple jar, he knew it was her favorite.

"And you'll help?"

"I'll try."

The two went to work with Rapunzel explaining what brushes to use and opening all the jars, but when he asked what colors she wanted and where she only said, "Be free with it!" He liked that, he liked that a lot. The only problem was, he didn't know what to do with that freedom.

He was used to freedom, that wasn't the problem. Jack did what he wanted when he wanted because he'd never really had too many restrictions but this was different. Here he was given the freedom to paint whatever he felt like wherever and in whatever color, yet he didn't know what to do with all those choices because he lacked the talent do make something worthy of being called art.

Normally, he wouldn't care, but with her… he wanted to impress her.

Twenty minutes past and he still had nothing, he turned over to look at Rapunel who had not only cleaned up the graffiti but was now painting a large sun over top.

He dapped his paintbrush in the white paint and stood in place with his hand lifted but no inspiration came.

"Stuck?" He jumped at the sound of her voice.

"How'd you sneak up on me?"

"I just walked." She said smiling. He laughed, she was too genuine for her own good.

"No one can ever sneak up on me, _ever_."

"Well, you can't say that anymore, now what do you want to paint?" Jack shrugged his shoulders. When he'd bought the paint, he never thought he'd have to come up with something to paint himself, in fact he hadn't thought that far ahead to begin with.

He figured Rapunzel had never been here and with it being so close to the beach and with a window that let in the sun in, he thought it would be perfect for her. Ironically, he didn't factor in himself on the date.

"Try snowflakes." She said, she dapped a clean paintbrush in the white paint and started to draw snowflakes on the walls, "My side can be Spring, yours can be winter, you love the snow, right?"

"Yeah, yeah I do." He smiled again remembering one of the conversations in the park. He'd told her all about his time in the snow, how he loved the feeling of cold air, the art of icicles and the feeling of freshly fallen snow against his skin.

He watched as she painted the first snowflake, memorized with the way she moved her hand. His own hand crept up on her shoulder and slid down to her fingers. She froze from the touch, the feeling it gave her was so intimate, she didn't know what to do with herself.

"And wind, wind that carries the snow." Jack said, he pulled her hand up and down to make swirls that were meant to be the wind blowing the snowflake away.

"G-good idea." She stuttered, Jack smirked.

He slowly pulled his hand away from her, taking in every goose bump that came from his touch, "Do you want to eat a snack? I can tell you about the ghosts here too." She turned and smiled, they sat back down and he handed her some apple slices, courtesy of Merida.

"They say the ghosts are loudest during the sunset and sunrise." Jack said in between bites, "And the voices are always of one man and one woman. The woman asks for her king and then man calls her his queen."

Rapunzel's put her hand on her chin and thought over what he had said, something didn't make sense to her.

"But, why does she ask for a king, why doesn't she call him her king?" The wind blew in from the broken window. Rapunzel inhaled sharply, she hadn't noticed the window before, Jack decided to play into the moment.

"I guess you asked the right question, you went and got their attention." He took another bit and watched her squirm, she looked worried.

"Is that all they say, nothing else?"

"Not that I've heard of, but they mostly sing the words, sounds like an old lullaby."

"Have you ever heard it?"

"Nah, wish I did." He saw her shiver and stopped eating momentarily to pull off his sweatshirt. He handed it to her and she blushed again, he wasn't sure why, he was wearing a shirt underneath, but maybe, maybe the idea of wearing his clothes had caused the rush of blood. If that were true, she was more innocent than he thought, although he didn't mind that either.

She pulled his sweatshirt over her small body, and poked her head through the hole, "Maybe," She said, "She's a queen, but he's not a king, maybe she's asking him to be her king?"

"Or maybe she just wants a king and he's not it." Jack was more of a realist than he was a romantic but he could tell by the glimmer in Rapunzel's eyes that she was the former.

"No, I think they we're in love," Her eyes widened as she realized what she said, "I mean they're in love! Or were, I think they were in love..." She clasped her hands together in hopes the sound would keep him from noticing her reddening face. Jack was too distracted by her eyes to have noticed her cheeks, they looked so lovely with the window's sunglight touching them.

"Jack?"

"Hmm?" He shook his head and refocused himself, recalling the last thing she'd said, "I'm guessing you like fairytales."

"Don't you?" Her voice was relieved he hadn't noticed her Freudian slip, he didn't let on he had, instead he laughed.

"Uh, I don't know, seems like a whole lot of fluff."

"Fluff is good! It cushions your fall." She laid down on the ground and closed her eyes. Jack couldn't be more impressed with her, she hadn't meant to say something so deep but she had and in a way he'd never heard before. Of course it didn't change his view of fairytales but at least, to some degree, he could now see the ghosts being in love with one another, at least the way she put it.

He lied down next to her, "So if they're in love, they're singing to each other?"

"Yes, I think they are, I think they're serenading one another. It's not a ghost story Jack, it's a love story." She kicked her legs out in excitement, he chuckled.

_Why is she so adorable, and when did I start liking anything adorable? _

"I think you're the only person in town who'd put that spin on it."

"Not everything we can't explain or understand has to be scary." She turned on her side to see his face. She was expecting him to roll his eyes but instead, he was looking at her as though she was the most brilliant person in the world. Her cheeks turned red again.

"You're smart." He said with a bit of slyness in his voice.

"Thank you." She laid back down and covered her face. He moved closer to her and touched her hands, "What are you doing?" He was laughing as he tried to pry her hands away from her face.

"I…I just…feel…warm…in the face." He snickeered and with one final pull, he moved her hand away. Her cheeks were indeed very red.

"You could have lied to me." He said when he saw them growing redder.

"I don't lie," She got up and tilted her head, it looked as though she was analyzing him. He felt the need to pull his hoodie over his face to hide himself but quickly realized she was wearing it.

"You don't?"

"I don't, do you?"

"Sometimes."

"Would you ever lie to me?" He opened his mouth to say something sarcastic but stopped mid breath when he saw how serious her eyes had become. Hiccup had said she never broke a promise and she didn't like liars.

He closed his mouth, that's what Jack did, he lied for the fun of it, not to hurt anyone, no he wasn't that type of liar but he told what one might call "white lies," lies to further a prank, or lies that were so obvious they were meant to be sarcastic. Somehow, he couldn't see himself doing any of those things with her. Except for perhaps the sarcasm, but for some reason, being around her made him want to be genuine. And so, he told her the truth.

"I don't think I could, I mean I could try but… I don't think I could go through with it."

She smiled at him and he smiled back. They were quiet for a few moments, he couldn't help but feel as though he should kiss her.

"Do you want to finish painting?" She got up and extended her hands out to him. He grabbed them and she pulled him up, he liked the way her hands felt in his.

For the next hour, she painted spring and he painted winter. As he expected, her spring was much more beautiful than his winter what with her intricate flowers and trees, the birds in her blue sky and the green grass below. His was filled with snowflakes and wind, nothing more. More than once, he looked over at her. She was so full of joy as she jumped around with her paint, her golden hair fell over her shoulders like rays from the sun.

He noticed she'd left several of her paints unattended and that gave him another idea. Without a word, he crept up behind her and dipped his hand in the blue paint, "Punz?" She turned around to answer him and was greeted with a heap of blue paint being thrown at her face.

"Jack!" She put her paintbrush down and reached for the nearest paint near her. He tried to dodge her throw but was hit several times with pink paint on his face, chest and leg.

"I only got you once!" He reached down for a whole jar, she wasn't showing him any mercy. He raised his hand to throw yellow paint at her when she lifted her hands to say stop, "Not here, the walls!" She opened the door and ran outside, he followed her and as soon as they were both out of the building, he started to attack. She had a jar too, a jar of orange. She ducked behind a few cans and looked up to throw more paint at him but he'd disappeared.

"Jack?" She whispered.

"Right here." He said into her ear, she jumped and fell onto her back, before she could react, he dumped the entire jar on her. She let out a shriek and retaliated by chucking the paint from her jar at him. He was too quick for her and more than half of the paint had landed on the road.

"I win." Jack said smugly.

She wiped the paint from her eyes and growled.

"This time." She said with a pointed finger. Jack smiled and held out his hand to help her up. Instead of taking it, she jumped at him. He caught her, barely staying balanced from her added weight. She was light but the way she'd jumped at him almost sent him falling to the ground. Her legs were wrapped around his waist and her arms were around his neck.

"Now you're covered in just as much paint." She said with as much smugness as he had used before.

"Touche." He whispered. She looked down at the ground, it hit her all of a sudden that he was holding her up and that made her blush all over again.

He took pity on her and let her down carefully, not wanting her to get nervous and pull away from him if he held her too long. He looked down at his shirt, it was a mix of colors but mostly of the yellow he'd thrown at her.

"Before we get into another war, we should probably finish painting just so we don't waste all the paint?" He nodded and took her hand, she liked the way his hand felt in hers.

When they were done, she grabbed his thumb and pressed his finger against the wall as she'd done before to her own painting, this time she made sure to press it in a wet spot.

"I always like to leave a thumbprint." She told him, but he hadn't asked her why. He hadn't thought to, every little thing she did he accepted as part of her personality, a personality he really liked being around.

"Kind of like a sign you were here?" He asked.

She looked surprised again and nodded, "Yup!"

With the snacks eaten and the paintings done, there was only one thing left that he wanted to do.

"Do you want to head over to the beach for a bit to let the paint dry?"

She nodded, "That's a great idea!" She took his hand and rushed out the door, he could barely keep up with how quickly she was moving down the road. Before he knew it, they were at the sand.

"Wait, wait!" He said, he didn't want to take another step with his shoes on, he kicked them off and breathed a sigh of relief with his feet finally free.

"You like being barefoot too! I had forgotten that, you always come barefoot to the park," She picked up his shoes and threw them them back onto the grass, "why'd you wear shoes to our date?"

"Believe it or not I was trying to impress you, dumb idea."

"Very dumb." She grabbed his hand again and they went running down the sandy hill together until they'd reached the water. He twirled her around and the two fell back into the ocean. The paint on their clothes mixed with the water creating a rainbow that surrounded them. When they were done splashing each other, they ran out of the water and down the beach. Their running turned into a race, a race that Jack won easily. As much as Rapunzel didn't like to admit it, he was the faster runner, but in her defense, his legs were longer.

"I win." Jack said, she stuck out her tongue.

"Oh don't be bitter, you wouldn't want to attract the ghosts." Jack pulled her close to him and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He was being more familiar with her than he had planned to be but he couldn't help himself. Even if it was their first date he'd known her for some time and he already felt so close to her.

"The ghosts are too in love with each other to be worried about me sticking my tongue out, besides, you deserve it."

"I do?"

"Yes." She pressed her toes over his and pushed herself up so that she was on the tip of her feet, "But only partly."

"Oh yeah, how do you figure that math?" He leaned in closer to her, she smelled like saltwater, apples and flowers.

"Well, I can't be completely mad, I like you." He wrapped his hands under her knees and pulled her up, she squealed from the lift.

"You do, are you sure?"

"Well…" He twirled her, "Yes!" She screamed. He set her back down and she leaned against his shoulder.

"I really do like you Jack, you understand me." Her voice was so soft, he could barely hear her over the waves, but he heard her and he smiled. He gently pulled her back and leaned in to kiss her, he stopped just before his lips touched hers.

Jack stared at her as if she was the loveliest thing his eyes had ever seen. He touched her cheek, it was so warm. He couldn't help wondering if this was what love feels like. He pulled back and smiled at her, she rolled her eyes.

"Do you remember what I told you in the park, the first day we met?" He asked. Rapunzel had run out of blue paint and couldn't paint her sky the color she wanted, so Jack had told her to paint it red, or yellow, or purple.

"You kept talking about being spontaneous, breaking the order of things." She knew exactly what he was trying to do.

"Exactly, so I was thinking-" She cut him off with a kiss. She wasn't tall enough to reach him on her own and so she had to do a small jump to reach his mouth, it resulted in him catching her as soon as their lips touched.

He leaned down to make it easier for her and they buried their toes in the sand; their kiss deepened. She wrapped her hands around his neck again and he put his on her waist. From the distance he could have sworn he heard two lovers singing a song about being one another's queen and king.

"You are my queen." He said in between kisses, not caring how romantic he sounded.

"Will you be my king?" She said with a laugh, her voice was more demanding than she had intended.

"Well if you insist." He said as he lifted her up again. He ran down the beach and twirled her in the sand until she laughed so hard she couldn't talk anymore. He placed her back down and held hands with their bare feet touching the shallow water of the ocean.

_If this isn't love, I don't know what the hell it is…but I'm pretty sure this is it._


End file.
